Next year I'm taking on something new and intimidating. I and three other teachers (history, algebra, and study skills) are taking most of the students from our feeder middle schools who failed two or more eighth-grade classes. Most of them will be boys, most minority, most who qualify for free or reduced lunch – although except for the gender, those qualifiers describe the majority of the students at my high school. Since passing ninth grade is one of the strongest correlations for staying in school and graduating, this is an important task.

Mostly, I'm excited even though part of me is sad that I had to give up my honors classes to do this and part of me is terrified that I will not be able to get the kids hooked.

I've been looking for more ways to bring kinesthetic activities into an English classroom where basic skills in reading and writing are a top priority, and believe me, there just aren't that many kinesthetic activities when it comes to the actual tasks of reading and writing. Kinesthetic projects and responses to literature I have aplenty. Actually getting them moving when they're reading and writing is pretty difficult – especially at the high school level.

We've also been exploring alternative assessment and trying to figure out how that will fit in. One of our discussions right now is how we will balance responsibility and mastery. We're playing with the idea that student can pass our final exams with a 75% or better, it won't matter whether they turned in assignments or not, as long as the tests prove mastery in skills and content. But if we do this, are we setting them up to fail when they move on to more conventional teachers?

There are still a lot of discussions to be had and decisions to be made, but I'm working with an outstanding group of teachers who are all strong relationship builders, and to me, that is the most important "skill" we need to make this work.

All in all, we are up for this challenge. It's either going to be the most rewarding, exciting year of my career, or it will be the year from H-E-double-toothpicks. But the glass is always half full to me, so I'm counting on the former.